Easter 3

Easter 3 (Luke 24:13-35)
He was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Seeing is not necessarily believing.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ was not something the disciples believed easily. Many of the disciples did not immediately recognize Jesus in his resurrection body even when they saw him. People have attempted to explain this phenomena in mystical or occult terms. The reality is likely far more ordinary.

A 14th century English scholar named William of Occam developed a principle of inquiry that may help us understand the problem. William said: the simplest explanation is usually the best explanation.

The simplest explanation for why so many of Jesus’ disciples, from Mary Magdalene to Cleopas and his friends, did not recognize Jesus at first is that they never expected Jesus to rise from the dead. Resurrection was outside the parameters of what they believed was possible in this world. And, it was outside their own religious beliefs.

Seeing is not necessarily believing when the person who sees cannot accept the reality of his senses. If we hold onto strong beliefs and expectations about how the world works and what is possible we may very well miss the moment of grace when the Eternal intersects with the temporal, when the infinite God makes himself known in the particularity of human experience.

More often than not, believing requires a wider and more profound context.
Jesus understood this very well. In his human nature he was a student of the present human condition. As the logos, the co-eternal Word of God, he himself is the pattern of original human nature. He observed the discrepancy between the original pattern and the present reality.

Jesus knew his disciples were lost in separation from God. He knew this separation had produced distortions in the way we think, feel and make choices. He knew that most of his disciples in that generation would not be able to believe in the resurrection within the context of their assumptions about the world.

So, Jesus provided a new context. We hear in this story the three fold nature of the new context. It is the Bible, the Sacraments, and the Community of Faith.

The first thing Jesus did when he spoke with Cleopas and his companions was to lead them in Bible Study. From Moses and the Prophets Jesus explained the context for faith. That context is the great love of God at work in the nation of Israel for over a thousand years prior to the incarnation.

Moses and the Prophets provide the foundation for faith and set the parameters for belief.

The problem was the overlay of human tradition that had evolved over the centuries and obscured the clear and concise message of Moses and the Prophets. So, in addition to Bible Study, Jesus manifested the new reality through the new sacrament of the new covenant: Holy Communion.

As Jesus broke the bread he invoked the memory of the Passover sacrifice and applied it to himself in the present moment.

As Jesus broke the bread, Cleopas and the others had an “aha” moment. It was a moment of grace. And, it was a moment Jesus had prepared through the Bible study that preceded it.

In that moment, the disciples recognized the Plan of Salvation was not law and wrath but love and grace. In that moment, the disciples understood what Jesus had been teaching for three years and what Moses and the Prophets had declared for centuries.
In that moment, the new context Jesus provided facilitated faith. And the faith gave birth to belief. In that moment of grace that produced faith their eyes were opened to see what had been there all of the time. Suddenly, within the new context of Word and Sacrament, seeing became believing.

Their faith resulted in belief. Their belief fulfilled the work of the moment. Jesus vanished. And the disciples rushed back to Jerusalem to report to the apostles who had had their own moment of grace.

The third context of faith that produces belief is the Community of Faith. The disciples gathered together. They shared their personal and individual experience of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. That experience became the living tradition of Faith.
The tradition is living not dead. The tradition unfolds in the present time in the personal experience of the faithful. We hold the experience in the context of Word and Sacrament so the universal and unchanging truth of Jesus Christ can be revealed in the particularity of the present moment of our present experience.

This story that we heard read only exists to help us and many others in the world to discover the reality of God. That reality is a new life and a new way of living that over time heals the distortions of human thought, emotion and will. That reality unfolds in a particular moment in a particular place through a personal relationship with the particular person: Jesus Christ.

One of the lessons we may draw from this story is that seeing is not always believing. Another lesson might be: pay attention.

Pay attention to your life. Pay attention to the world around you. Pay attention to the people who are closest to you. Pay attention to your own assumptions about life.
As you pay attention to what is you prepare to enter your moment of grace. The moment of grace will be different for every individual. The moment of grace will be very personal. It will also be your invitation to hear the Good News of God’s love for you in the living Lord Jesus Christ.

Faith does require a new context for belief. The context is not a philosophy or a set of laws or even ritual. The context is the personal invitation from Jesus Christ to hear, and to see and to believe what has been present to us all our lives.
Through word and sacrament Cleopas and the others found a new way of understanding themselves, the world, and God. They saw what was right in front of them. They saw Jesus.

The process is normative for all people everywhere. The process is a continual invitation to transformation in the community of Faith, the Church. The process produces the faith that can joyfully affirm the belief: Alleluia, the Lord is risen indeed!